African Grand Designs

My wife, Mariama, is a Sierra Leonian from Koindu, a town in the most easterly part of the country. From when she first arrived in the UK she has been dreaming about returning to Africa. Unfortunately for a long period of time the civil war in Sierra Leone prevented us from returning. Mariama's home town was one of the first towns to be raided by the rebels and her family have been refugees in Guinea ever since.

About 10 years ago we purchased a plot of land on Juba Hill in the capital, Freetown. We bought the land on the advice of some friends of ours, unseen! The area of land is 10 town lots which equates to about an acre. We didn't want all the land but the vendor refused to break it up, so we ended up with a sizable area of hillside.

View across land at Juba Hill

We finally visited the land in July 2004 after the civil war had ended. While it was clearly going to be a challenge to build on such a steep hill, the view out over the Atlantic was one to savour. Coupled with the fresh breeze to cool us in the tropical days it looked like a place to build our dreams.

The panoramic view of the Atlantic

One thing that stopped us from starting the project was the state we found Mariama's family living in Conakry on our 2004 trip to Africa. Although we had rented the house it was almost as damp inside as out. We decided we needed to get the family into a house of their own so for the next couple of years we concentrated on building a family house in Guinea.

While delaying our own project, this allowed us to get some idea of what was going to be involved in building in Africa. Lessons we learned. Do not trust anyone. It is always going to cost just $500 more to finish. And help can come from the most unexpected places.

This blog is a catch up about our house builds in Africa to date, progress on the Juba Hill project and, hopefully provides some lessons and inspiration for others. We have had ups and downs. If Kevin McCloud finds his on site project managers are taking on more than they can manage, feel sorry for us trying to build a project 4000 miles away where our builders don't speak our language and our translator knows almost nothing about the technical aspects of building.

Still here is the Conakry House

The house in Conakry

and here is one of the reasons we are building in Freetown now.

Sunset over the Atlantic